to worry that the feminism of the 1970's is erradicating feminitity...

[MrsTwinks]

Im fully prepaired to be flamed... but the other thread reminded me of a conversation I had with my stepsister and cousin a while ago.

Both were career women of a sort before they had their kids and became SAHP, and were talking about how guilty it made them feel, yet SS said she loved being a mum and it was all she ever wanted. It seems to me that the attitude of our mothers (all mad feminists in my fam i'm afraid) got so engrossed in trying to have a fantastic career and being the perfect mum they lost sight of the truth that you cant have both.

I remember my mum feeling that she had to go out and have that wonderful career she was told she was entitled to (not that she wasnt dont get me wrong) contantly trying to find something that made her has fulfilled as being a homemaker because she was made to feel she was "letting the side down" by not going for a career and being a mum. Ironically shes doing the same to me now, as is being done to alot of my generation (in my fam and friends at least), we are being made to feel guilt because we DONT WANT to be career women. Homemaker has become an ugly word and makes you lazy/stupid/scrounger or whatever.

Add to that the likes of Newsnight last night where we are told putting girls in sparkly and pink clothing (nevermind cut or item or whatever) and telling them to kiss daddy goodnight is tantamount to sexualising children?!!!?? what next.. Im all against revealing clothes and all that, but seriously.. how is a little girl wearing pink sparkly clothes and kissing daddy goodnight bad?? and yet our mothers generation of feminists is telling us that its wrong. It appears to me they are telling us that being FEMININE is bad. What is wrong with the way we are made??

ok rant over, but it REALLY gets my goat that (to me) all these women are telling me its bad to want to be a STHP who has a home made dinner ready when people get home and a clean house, and whos life is more about her kids than her high powered career because I have a brain. All I wanted to be when I grew up was a mum and now Im supposed to have a new dream because someone tells me mine isnt enough and I am pandering to masocism or some such.

Please tell me i'm not the only one? or was i really born decades too late

Your OP is full of your own stereotypes ("career women of a sort - err is that not simply women who have jobs that are not minimum wage?"). A choice to train for a career certainly does not imply a giving up of feminity but is simply common sense for any woman. Otherwise your choices are living in poverty or finding a man to pay for your life choices. Its a good idea for any woman, whether they want to be a SAHM or not, to ensure they have the skills and training to earn their living when younger or in the future should circumstances dictate. IMHO it also gives children a good role model. Even if you choose to give up the world of work, at least if you have done it in the past, you have proved to yourself that you can do it!

To be really old fashioned too, it used to be the case that women who wished to make a career as a homemaker and wife, took pride in doing so and a good education and interesting experiences in life meant better conversational skills round the dinner table and reflect better on their husbands (and therefore their promotion prospects) than someone whose only interest is solely in domestic issues. A homemaking wife with some interests and talents is also more likely to bring up their children to develop a variety of different interests, both intellectual and sporting.

MrsTwinks, what about those blokes who never had the chance to develop their dreams of child rearing?

In this modern post-70s world I am happy to inhabit, both my dh and my 3 brothers have had their chance of childrearing- they are all happier for the experience and I think it has done all our families good

I am sure both my dad and my granddad would have loved an opportunity like that

Mrs Twinks - you're comparing the influence of A mother (a matriarch) with A father ( a patriarch) with The Patriarchy (thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1182632-I-dont-get-The-Patriarchy talks about a lot of examples. While Feminism would say the personal is the political, the equivalent would be to say well I've been called a Paki by a black person and by a white person so racism is equal from both sides. Society and history tells us that is not so. While any race can be racist it has been non-whites that have been on the systematic receiving end of that racism (segregation, no votes, slavery).

I don't think you should feel patronised about YOUR choices by anyone (female or male) but I reckon a bit of reading up, mooching around the internet (and would highly recommend the Women's Rights/Feminism section here) would cast your mum's opinions in a different light (not to make her right but maybe an insight into the time at which her views were formed) and also give you some good comebacks to any kind of condescension. It may or may not give you a different perspective on some of your own assumptions too.

My mum is a career mum, in the sense that being a mum is her career. She has been a mum since 17 and is now almost 70. I have started my family late in life in comparison and I know that no matter how well I did (educationally, career, awards etc) - in her eyes - my greatest achievement would be to have children. She has now had to understand that I want to work as well as be a mum and she has taken it in good grace because she understands that, for me, I need to have the contrast and challenge of work alongside the challenge of parenting to enjoy both (financial need aside). She has come to realise this is not a comment on HER choices, in the same way that me following current guidelines on parenting (weaning timelines etc) is not saying she did things wrong with me because if she were parenting a baby now, she knows she would be following the current guidelines too. At the heart of all this sounds like a need for a frank discussion with your mum about YOUR choices and how you appreciate her choices were best for her and her family, and you will be doing the same. TBH it doesn't really sound like your beef is with 'Feminism' at all.